The Saturday Mothers gathered in İstanbul’s Galatasaray Square for their 1,011th weekly vigil, demanding accountability for the abduction and murder of Ferhat Tepe, a Kurdish journalist with the Özgür Gündem newspaper, who was killed 31 years ago. Concurrently, vigils were held in various Kurdish-majority cities, including Diyarbakır (Amed) and Van (Wan), to commemorate the victims of the Digor (Dîgor) massacre of 1993, two unrelated incidents, both pertaining to the injustices against Kurds and impunity for crimes committed against them.
During the İstanbul vigil, Setenay Eren, a relative of a disappeared person, recounted the harrowing details of Tepe’s abduction in 1993. She described how armed men took the journalist, and his family later received a ransom demand and threats from a group claiming to act on behalf of the Turkish Revenge Brigade (TIT). Thirteen days after his abduction, Tepe’s tortured body was discovered in a paupers’ cemetery in Elazığ (Xarpêt), far from where he was initially taken.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) had previously condemned Turkey for its handling of Tepe’s case, citing significant investigative failures. Turkey’s Constitutional Court acknowledged the deficiencies but, despite the findings of the ECtHR, refused to reopen the case due to the statute of limitations.
Eren expressed the ongoing frustration with the lack of accountability, stating, “We will continue to seek justice for our loved ones, no matter how many years pass.”
Ayşe Tepe, Ferhat’s sister, stressed that the pursuit of justice remains undeterred. “No government has taken steps to address these injustices. If future leaders fail to engage with the Saturday Mothers, they will not sustain their power. We will never retreat from this fight.”
The day concluded with the symbolic gesture of placing carnations in memory of Ferhat Tepe and all victims of enforced disappearances.
In addition to the vigil in İstanbul, Kurdish-majority cities held memorials focused on the victims of the Digor massacre, where 17 people including six children were killed by state forces during a protest in 1993. Human rights activists and the families of the victims demanded justice.
The Digor massacre occurred on 14 August 1993 in the Digor district of Kars (Qers) in eastern Turkey. Thousands of villagers from various Kurdish-majority villages gathered in protest against state repression and the imposition of the village guard system. As the group, which included women and children, marched towards the town centre, they were attacked by state security forces who opened fire on them without warning. Seventeen people were killed, and hundreds were injured
The massacre was followed by a prolonged and flawed legal process. The investigation into the incident did not begin until three years later, in April 1996, and was marred by significant irregularities. Turkish Special Forces accused of the killings claimed they had been fired on by the protesters, but no evidence was found of weapons among the demonstrators. The trial proceedings were criticised for treating the victims as if they were the accused, denying them proper legal representation and failing to gather evidence from the scene.
The families of the victims faced pressure and intimidation, leading to many withdrawing from the legal process. The case was eventually brought to the ECtHR, which ruled against Turkey and imposed a financial penalty. The families of the deceased were awarded 35,000 Euros, while the injured received 10,000 Euros. However, the Turkish courts eventually dismissed the case on the grounds of the statute of limitations, effectively ending any hope for justice for the victims.
